ALAN SILVESTRI

You're an idiot.

Most definitely. But I'm still right.

Good God, I don't understand this weird niche preoccupation with how a soundtrack works as fitting to the film, as part of the film but divorced from its limiting visual aspects or as a standalone musical work!

Everyone knows that the only proper way to enjoy a soundtrack is to buy it on vinyl and hang it on your wall.

Can someone create a random "album program" generator cause I have a feeling whatever the track order or tracks used, Thor will end up defending it simply on the basis of it being an album program.

Now in regards to the expansions of parts 2 and 3, this might be a case where I'll go for the download option as oppose to buying the CDs as I can only take so much BTTF and the first one was plenty for me.

I'm between two worlds myself here.

When it comes to certain scores, I'm definitely on Thor's side. I mean, I wouldn't like The Last Samurai any other way, even if I know there is a complete boot somewhere. The album, with it's inter-mixing of stuff, tells the story of the film better than the film itself does and frankly, in the film, I don't even think that it's the best piece of structure as a film score Hans has ever done. Some short albums are also perfect, Beyond Rangoon for example.

On the other hand, there are certain examples where complete and chronological do the trick in the appreciation of a score. I remember having a total reimagining of Rambo after the C&C program released by Intrada (I may have done without the missing two minutes of the music, but the score's ingenuity is definitely in the way the themes shape out and intertwine and lead to the finale at the end). I feel the same with Golden Age scores and I shutter to think that there were actually 30-minute LPs of them at the time. They'd lose the whole ingenuity and charm of them due, again, to the ways that themes are developed throughout the work. With Zimmer, I had a total re-appreciation of The Peacemaker when I first heard it in complete form (in fact, long before the last year release of it), which not only emphasized all the thumping in the score, but also missed out on most of the emotional and suspense material, just giving two (!) arrangements of the beautiful Sarajevo theme which is much more often used in the score itself. One of Rona/Zimmer's worst hours in terms of album programming. Crimson Tide is a mixed bag for me, as while I wouldn't want the complete score on album (that "fire in the galley" cue is downright bad piece of music hands down, even though it's fantastic in the film itself), I don't fully agree with the selection of the cues (the "sinking Alabama" ambient which may not be to everybody's ears, to delicately put it, I'd replace it with the cue where Hackman is relieved of command... and I seriously miss the main title cue)

I wonder what Thor thinks about Interstellar. That album is not the complete presentation (to the chagrin of most of fans, due to a single cue, namely No Time For Caution, I didn't miss it much), but it's probably the only Zimmer score released in a chronological program.

This is where we part ways completely.
I will always (massively) prefer a well produced 40 minute album.
I ahve argued time and again the best soundtrack albums in history are the original LP releases of Rozsa's Quo Vadis and Ben Hur. The sheer onslaught of absolutely brillliant highlights set these albums at a very lonely zenith in film music history.

Of course I also own the (various) expanded and complete score, but while Ben Hur holds up OK (even though it is vvveeeeeeeerrryyyyy longgggg), the sheer oodling about and repetition in Quo Vadis makes it a 3.5 out of 5 score at best. The 'highlight' albums referenced earlier though are off the scale though. No point even trying to rate them.

So with many of the complete originals or extended rerecordings, as (academically) fascinating I find them, after a first listen I whittle them down to 36-40 minutes of highlights.

I think Interstellar is one of Hans' finest. But 'No Time for Caution' is essential in my appreciation of it, and not the one that was released either. I'm talking about a fan edit that is as close to the film version as possible. I just made my own almost 80 minute album and it plays brilliantly.

Updated the Predator 2 review

done

Meh. He's already been there, done that. I'd rather see him do smaller stuff where gets to do more laidback, textural stuff -- at least a lowkey drama of some sort. Films like FLIGHT. He hasn't really done anything good in the blockbuster/bombast style since THE MUMMY RETURNS or arguably BEOWULF.

Oh yes oh yes oh yes oh yes. I pray to Odin he doesn't get replaced. And if he must, I hope it's Elfman.

Avengers was a bit of a letdown, except for the theme, so here's hoping he'll improve on that one and the slightly better Captain America.

It's hopeful news largely for the fact that Silvestri would get to expand on the material he wrote for the first film (at least I assume so... this is Marvel we're talking about). It's one of the most recognisable themes in the Marvel universe, so it would be silly not to re-use it. But, again, Marvel.

Whoever gets the job, Marvel in their infinite wisdom will trample on creativity, so I would rather it go to Silvestri just for the sake of continuity if anything.

Agreed.

Nothing in The Avengers is as awesome as Predator 1/2 or Judge Dredd or Eraser or The Mummy Returns. Those are excellent Silvestri action scores. I somehow doubt we will ever hear that sound again from the man.